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Message-ID: <1183F48B-57BB-4CBE-8474-CF1D7DFD7F6E@benramsey.com>
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Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2021 10:13:47 -0600
In-Reply-To: <26074258-B6B5-40EA-A043-E3FAD1FB5365@newclarity.net>
Cc: Larry Garfield <larry@garfieldtech.com>,
 php internals <internals@lists.php.net>
To: Mike Schinkel <mike@newclarity.net>
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 <cmu-lmtpd-1237368-1610318405-0@sloti26t05>
 <fde16316-6e24-4735-b1dc-f2aad6c91ef5@www.fastmail.com>
 <490416F4-7E2F-454F-A317-43212CA6C2D1@benramsey.com>
 <28f44744-4dc5-4cb8-8751-6b66386119fa@www.fastmail.com>
 <26074258-B6B5-40EA-A043-E3FAD1FB5365@newclarity.net>
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] "TryX" idom for Enumerations
From: ben@benramsey.com (Ben Ramsey)

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> On Jan 11, 2021, at 19:09, Mike Schinkel <mike@newclarity.net> wrote:
>=20
>> On Jan 11, 2021, at 6:52 PM, Larry Garfield <larry@garfieldtech.com> =
wrote:
>>=20
>> On Mon, Jan 11, 2021, at 2:27 PM, Ben Ramsey wrote:
>>>> On Jan 10, 2021, at 20:09, Larry Garfield <larry@garfieldtech.com> =
wrote:
>>>>=20
>>>> On Sun, Jan 10, 2021, at 4:40 PM, Mark Randall wrote:
>>>>> On 10/01/2021 21:27, Larry Garfield wrote:
>>>>>> The "a method that begins with try is nullable, so watch out" =
idiom is present in C# and Rust, but to my knowledge has never existed =
in PHP.  That doesn't make it bad; it actually combines quite well with =
the null coalesce operator to allow for default values, making a =
valueOrDefault() method unnecessary.
>>=20
>>=20
>>> I have no problem introducing this idiom (or similar). In fact, I =
welcome it.
>>>=20
>>> In userland, the same concept is often achieved with methods like
>>> `fromOrNull()`, and as Mark points out, the word =E2=80=9Ctry=E2=80=9D=
 makes me think
>>> the method should throw an exception if it fails. I=E2=80=99m not =
advocating
>>> for `xOrNull()`, though, since I think that smacks of Hungarian
>>> notation, but maybe we can come up with something that is a more
>>> PHP-ish name. ;-)
>>>=20
>>> =E2=80=9CThere are two hard things in computer science: cache =
invalidation,
>>> naming things, and off-by-one errors.=E2=80=9D --Phil Karlton
>>>=20
>>> Cheers,
>>> Ben
>>=20
>> Do you have a suggestion for a better, more PHP-ish naming =
convention?
>=20
> maybeFrom()?


I think a `maybeX()` idiom is better, though it might be confusing to =
those familiar with functional programming languages that have a `Maybe` =
data type.

If we had generics, we could introduce a `Maybe` class, and these =
methods could return `Maybe<self>`, for example. That said, maybe =
`?self` is effectively the same thing?

For me, `maybeX()` is great, but I=E2=80=99d like to hear any =
objections/suggestions from others.

Cheers,
Ben


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